highs and lows

So I took the test. For variety, this time, instead of peeing onto a stick, I took the lazy option of peeing into a container and then poking the stick into the container full of pee for 20 seconds. Which theoretically is easier than standing holding the stick in a flow of your own pee for 5 seconds, trying not to get pee onto the readout part of the stick. However, I failed to realise that the container I used (for cotton buds originally) had two small holes in...not until after I had peed in it anyway. So my test also involved a stream of pee in an arc between the loo and the sink, and some artful tilting action to ensure that enough pee remained in the container to allow the stick to soak it up for 20 seconds. 20 seconds later, I was waiting on the test result and wiping pee off the floor tiles.

You'll be pleased to know that I have a 'normal ovarian reserve', which although it sounds like something a 1920's schoolmistress would write on a report card, is a good thing for a woman in my (aging, childless) predicament.

SO

I soon realised that my delight would be short lived, as I would have to persuade the expectant father to take his test. Oh, the fear in his eyes when I explained this to him. There is something very primal about the male realisation that 'firing blanks' might be a real possibility, and that he would have to masturbate into a cup to find out whether this is the case. As he said himself after taking the test, it wasn't his most dignified hour. He surprised me this morning after I picked him up from work by stating that today he was going to "go home, have some lunch and wank into a cup".
I genuinely thought he would take a few days more to talk himself into it, but now, he steeled himself, drew the curtains and (with me helping a bit) went for it. Chocks away, as they say.
The waiting involved in the men's test isn't even funny. 80 minutes! I thought the waiting for the women's test was bad, but this took real determination and application. So of course, once the sample was well and truly dispatched into said cup, he left me to it and played on the computer for about an hour, checking every so often to see what was happening.

We followed the instructions to the letter. Wait for half an hour, put top of test on, press big blue button, wait for half an hour, wait for light to stop flashing, turn the turny thing, wait for flashing light to change tempo and then stop, turn turny thing again and read result.
Check, check, check, a million times check.

No lines.
If one line is visible, you have a low count. If two lines are visible you have a normal count. If no lines are visible the test hasn't worked.

After all that.
After all the indignity, the waiting, the buttons and lights and flashing and turning.
No dice.

As you can imagine, he didn't take it very well. Already having deep seated fears regarding his fertility, this DID NOT HELP. The leaflet said to ring the helpline. So I rang the helpline, to hear a lovely polite (if a little vocally flat) answerphone message telling me that the helpline only operated 9am - 12 Monday to Friday and to look up the website. So I left an irritated contact message on the website, my irritation having been exacerbated by noticing that in America you can buy male tests separately, but in the UK only 'female' and 'couples' test kits are available. DO British and Irish men just not want to know? What is the craic with that?

SO now we are forced to wait yet again, this time for the manufacturers to get back to us.
They blinking well better give us a free test, is all I can say.